SH40: A World Without Email
Do you enjoy email? What about Slack? Any other professional messaging system?
Obviously you’re less happy, but have you ever stopped to ask if they actually make you more productive? What if they’re actually making the whole organization worse off?
In his latest book, A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload, Cal Newport lays out the problems with email/slack and what you can do to improve the situation.
In this episode, the humans discuss the book, the issues with email, how the problems started without anyone noticing, and what you can do to improve your productivity and happiness at the same time.
Shownotes:
Standard Humans is hosted by Aidan Dennehy and Evan.
A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload by Cal Newport
Communication Overload: Our research shows most workers can’t go 6 minutes without checking email or IM by RescueTime
Egocentrism Over E-Mail: Can We Communicate as Well as We Think? - Study by Kruger et al. that found 20% of emails are misinterpreted.
Apparently emojis aren’t the answer: “To be sure, to help resolve such ambiguities, the tech-savvy occasionally make use of symbolic so-called emoticons, such as the smiley face “:-),” the winking smiley face “;-),” or the dreaded “:-(.” This is not such a clear remedy, however, as many emoticons are themselves ambiguous. Emoticonuniverse.com, for instance, lists no fewer than 300 emoticons, some of which are far from intuitive, including “;-?,” “%-(,” and “:!/.”2 Moreover, people often neglect to use emoticons altogether, particularly when the sarcasm or humor is “obvious.”“.
SUMMER SCHOOL 4: Scarcity & Pistachios by Planet Money - What is the Tragedy of the Commons?
Shovelling And The Tragedy Of The Commons - by Planet Money
The Curse of Knowledge - short article explaining it